


It's Not Over Yet

by InvincibleDrew



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Angst, Canon Character of Color, Canon-typical swearing, Dealing With Trauma, Disabled Character, Eventual relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Paul and Emma escape AU, Paul isn't infected AU, these poor babies went through so much
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 06:22:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18089093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InvincibleDrew/pseuds/InvincibleDrew
Summary: Paul survives the explosion and has to blend in with the Hive in order to escape Hatchetfield. Will he and Emma escape? How will they handle everything they have gone through?Inspired by the line "What if the only choice is you have to sing to survive?" from Inevitable.Beta'd by the lovely Morgan @starshipranger7 on tumblr!





	It's Not Over Yet

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic for TGWDLM, I had the idea when I first watched the show and I've been working on it for a while. My idea was that Paul has to pretend to be part of the Hive so he can plan his escape and help rescue Emma. I'm going to include a lot of heavy stuff in this story, like dealing with trauma (both mental and physical), so be warned. I'll definitely add content warnings so people can know what they're getting into. I also (in the most respectful way possible) want to explore the continued effects of Paul and Emma dealing with the complications of surviving the outbreak, so while I might not have the exact same experiences when dealing with the kinds of disabilities they are going through, please know that I'm going to be doing as much research as I can to make it accurate, but that if I get anything wrong, I don't mean to harm anyone or romanticize or belittle anyone's experiences.
> 
> This is the first chapter that I have written, and it picks up right after Paul blows up the meteor. The plan is to fill in the time skip in the show between Let It Out and Inevitable, and then go from there. Because in this story Paul has to blend in with the Hive, I had to write some new songs that the Hive sings in this time. I had a really hard time trying to write these so they fit in with the style of the music that Jeff Blim wrote, but I hope that people like them!
> 
> Once again, a huge thank you to Morgan for helping me with this fic, she's been a huge help!

When Paul threw that grenade, he barely expected to survive, much less come away from the explosion mostly unharmed. He opened his eyes, squinting against the light pouring into the crater where the meteor had landed, where the Old Starlight Theater had once stood. Other townspeople who had been infected lay nearby, but they were all unconscious. Paul tried to sit up, but he was dizzy. And his ears were ringing. Why were his ears ringing so loudly? Everything was somehow muffled and far too loud all at once, and he had to just lay there and breathe for a few minutes before he could sit up, and then slowly pull himself to his feet. He was still himself, he knew that. The spores that had begun to infect him when he had approached the meteor must have been damaged in the explosion. But as he looked around, he realized that the other people around him, his former friends and neighbors, must still all be infected. The explosion had weakened them, they were less dangerous now, but they were not returned to their former selves like Paul seemed to have been. His plan hadn’t worked. And if this hadn’t worked… what had become of Emma? Where was she? Was she safe? Was she even still alive? And how long had he been unconscious? There were no signs of life from the Hive, so Paul scrambled out of the ruins of the theater. He looked around what had once been downtown Hatchetfield. It was a disaster. Either the explosion had done much more damage than he had thought, or something else was going on. It hadn’t looked this bad when he had come to blow up the meteor, had it? He stumbled, and had to hold onto a splintered telephone pole to regain his balance. He tried to shake his head to ground himself, but that only made things worse, so he settled for breathing until he felt a bit less like the world was tilting to one side. He began to slowly make his way towards the park where he had last seen Emma, clinging to the twisted frame of a nearby car or a tree stump here or there for support. Once he got to the park, his worst fear was realized: Emma was nowhere to be found, although there was a large patch of blood-stained grass where she must have been laying. It looked like far too much blood, especially for someone Emma’s size, but Paul didn’t want to think about that. There were no signs of a struggle, no blood smeared elsewhere, and there was a patch of grass nearby that had been flattened, like a helicopter had landed and taken off. So someone must have gotten her out of there. Hopefully she was somewhere safe. Paul let out a deep breath he didn't know he was holding in. Emma had gotten off the island. He could only hope that she survived.

While Paul made his way back through town, he began to wonder what had happened after he blew up the meteor. Surely the explosion couldn’t have caused this much damage, and in such random places, he thought. The park seemed like it was in relatively good shape, but downtown looked like a tornado had swept through it. Pinebrook, the nice neighborhood where the richer people lived seemed okay, too, but Hatchetfield High School was destroyed. Paul decided to take the longer way through town to see if the bridge and the waterfront were still in good condition, but when he got there, his heart dropped. The bridge had been obliterated, metal twisted and warped, support beams crumbled, and the waterfront looked just as worse for wear. It looked almost too ruined, Paul thought, as a terrible thought came to him. PEIP had been sent to “clean up” the town after the outbreak, what if this was their doing? Was Hatchetfield being intentionally destroyed so that nobody would find out the truth about what happened? His breath started coming in gasps, and he sunk down to the rubble scattered ground, leaning against a large chunk of metal sticking out of the ground. He grasped his hair, pulling hard, until tears came to his eyes. His hands were sweaty, his face felt hot, and his head was spinning. The world was growing dark around the edges, or was that just him?  _ Is this what dying feels like? Is this the end? What’s happening to me? _ Paul had no idea how long he sat there, mind spiraling out of control, feeling as if he couldn’t breathe and the world was collapsing in on him, crushing him, killing him. Finally, his breathing returned to normal, his vision returned, and he was able to stand up slowly, albeit shakily, and began the long walk back to the crater. He intended to see if any of the infected people were conscious yet, but he found out before he got back, when he was intercepted by Bill. Except it wasn’t Bill, not really, because Bill was dead. He was part of the Hive now, and the proof was in the big, scary smile that spread across his face as he began to sing.

_ “Paul, you’re a part of something outside of your control. We finally beat you, yeah we’re on a roll. Kick back, chill out, you don’t need to worry. You’ll fit right in here, don’t you fret. We’ll succeed, you wanna bet?” _ More of the infected citizens of Hatchetfield were swarming around Paul and Bill now, and Emma’s old boss, Nora, began to sing.

_ “Our plan is clear, and now you’re here! We’re gonna get off this island soon. Time to spread our song, now sing along! But there’s just one flaw in our scheme.” _

_ “We need your expertise, Paul. We need your help to guide us all. You know your way around this town, and with your help we’ll bring it down. So what do you say?” _ The annoying Greenpeace Girl and the homeless man who hung out down the street from Paul’s apartment building chimed in too, and Paul had a terrible realization. The Hive thought he was already infected! He had a split second to react, and even though he hated singing and dancing, even though he swore he’d never be in a musical, even though he would rather die than join the Hive, he knew that if they found out he hadn’t been infected, they would just keep trying to kill him and make him join their shitty musical army. In the back of his mind, there was a tiny little voice, the tiniest shred of the Hive that must have stayed with him after he blew up the meteor, and it was singing! As much as he wanted to push that tiny voice aside, he knew what he would have to do. Silently apologizing to himself, and to Emma, and his integrity, he opened his mouth, and allowed himself to join their song.

_ “I say yes! I know what I want now, that was your goal. Let’s get off this island, and take control! The world is out there for us to claim, so let’s get organized and take an aim. We’ve come so far, and now it’s time to move forward, time to move on!” _

The Hive seemed to be convinced, and moved on with their song, so Paul bitterly hummed quiet harmonies and trailed behind the group, trying to figure out how he would be able to keep this up. He needed to find a way to get away from the Hive as soon as possible, or he would lose it.

Paul found his chance to get some space from the Hive a little while later, when the Hive was making their way towards the edge of town, clearly in an attempt to get off the island and overtake the world with their musical virus. Suddenly, a loud blast came from the other end of the beach, stopping the Hive in their tracks. Paul flinched, reminded of the explosion at the theater that had failed to destroy the Hive, and had gotten him into this nightmare situation. One of the members of the Hive, a man who Paul vaguely recognized as a mailman from town, went on ahead and came back to the group a short while later with news. PEIP was on the far corner of the island working on their cover-up job. There was a rumble throughout the Hive, and the consensus was that they needed to stay as far away from the soldiers as possible, so they could remain undetected until they could make a plan of attack. Too much movement on their part could get them discovered, and they would be unable to get off the island and take over the world. They headed back to the theater and descended back into the crater, disheartened and humming quiet versions of songs that Paul vaguely recognized from his encounters with the Hive before the explosion. He almost thought he heard the song Alice had sung to him and Bill, but when he tried to see if he could spot her within the crowd, he couldn’t make her out.  _ Poor Alice _ , he thought,  _ she was too young to have been a part of this. If only she had stayed on the bus to Clivesdale, at least she would have been safe from all of this. _ But there was nothing he could do about it now. He was trapped on this island, and so far as he knew, he was the only person who hadn’t been infected or killed, left to fend for himself and forced to blend in with the aliens who had killed his friends and neighbors.

Paul was forced from his thoughts when the Hive began to gather into a sort of group back in the crater, seemingly to decide what their next steps would be in their plan to destroy the world. Professor Hidgens stood up and gave a heartfelt monologue about how the Hive’s collective goal was to unite the world in song, and that they would stop at nothing to achieve their goal. Paul had to try very hard not to gag the entire time; clearly, Hidgens hadn’t changed much since becoming infected. All of the other citizens murmured their agreement, and Paul knew he had to play along to avoid arousing suspicion. God, this was awful. He didn’t want the Hive to take over the world, that was the exact opposite of what he really wanted! He wanted to get off of this godforsaken island, rescue Emma, and get the hell away from all of the bad things that had happened to them in the last few days. Hatchetfield just wasn’t the same anymore, everyone he knew and loved was either dead or infected, and it would never be the same, even if by some miracle the Hive was destroyed for good. There were too many bad memories here now. Suddenly, the germ of an idea began to form in his head. The Hive wanted him to help get them off the island, and Paul wanted to escape. What if he used their agenda of spreading the virus as a way to construct his own plan, and somehow managed to take them down in the process? It seemed risky, if not impossible, but it was the only thing he could think of to get himself away from the Hive. So Paul swallowed the lump in his throat and stepped towards the front of the group.

“I have an idea, a way for us to continue our plan. It may not be easy, and it will take a lot of planning, but I think it just might work,” he said, trying to project as much confidence as he could. The Hive all turned to look at him, waiting to hear his idea.  _ This has to be foolproof _ , Paul thought,  _ or they’ll see right through me _ . “Since I know the town so well, I can spy on the soldiers and find out how they are getting on and off the island, so we can make a plan to overtake them and get over to Clivesdale. Once we get there, it will be smooth sailing. But the most important part of this mission is to be sneaky, we can’t let them know what we’re doing, so I think it would be best if only a few of us went out a day, so as not to arouse suspicion. We can do this, we just need to be careful.”

The members of the Hive turned to consult with each other, and Paul’s hands began to sweat. What if they realized he wasn’t one of them, and they decided to kill him? What if his plan didn’t sound like a good idea? But luckily, they all seemed to love the idea, and Paul was appointed to be the leader of the mission, along with a few others, who would be on the lookout for PEIP soldiers, and all of the other infected citizens would stay put in the crater. Paul could hardly believe they had agreed so readily to his plan, but he wasted no time in ensuring that he would be given free range of the supplies that the Hive had procured in the short time it had taken them to take over the town, and that he wouldn’t be bothered too much by the rest of the Hive.

Paul knew that even though he was the Hive’s greatest asset in their escape plan and that he was going to be able to get away from the infected citizens a lot, he still had to make sure that he kept up his cover. Even though he hated musicals and wanted nothing more than to escape this island, if he was found out by the Hive, he would be killed, or worse-- turned into one of them-- and then his survival would have been for nothing. He wondered what Emma was doing. Was she okay? When she was taken off the island, did they bring her to Clivesdale, or somewhere farther away? How would she react to him pretending to be a part of the Hive in order to escape? He hoped she would be able to understand what he did, that this was a survival tactic. He wanted nothing to do with the Hive, but in order to make it out alive, this was his only choice.

 

It had been a few weeks since Paul had “joined” the Hive, and their plan was taking a long time to come together. He knew the Hive was getting restless; they wanted to  overtake Clivesdale, and then the rest of the world, ultimately infecting everybody on Earth, but they still hadn’t found a way off the island. And the last thing Paul wanted was for the Hive to actually succeed. He hated pretending to be a part of the Hive, God only knows how awful being a part of the real thing would be. Having the tiny voice in the back of his mind that connected him to the Hive was enough for him to worry that he was losing his mind, so being a mindless alien slave stuck in a singing and dancing musical hellscape would truly destroy him.

For the past week and a half, he had been scoping out the movements of the PEIP soldiers, and assessing the damage done to the town. Today, Paul was finally going to try to get across the water to Clivesdale. As usual, he quietly snuck away from the crater and made his way through Hatchetfield. His plan was to stop by his old apartment and grab a clean, nondescript pair of clothes before he tried to cross over to Clivesdale. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself once he got there, and wearing clothing that was ripped, dirty, and unclean from hiding out with the Hive was definitely not the way to go. While he was there, he grabbed enough cash from his emergency stash to last him a day or two. He headed back out into the remains of the town, and reached the area where the bridge between their city and Clivesdale used to be. One of the ways that PEIP was covering up the truth about what had really happened was by partially destroying the bridge and trashing all of the areas of town that were visible to their neighbors in Clivesdale, ostensibly to discourage anyone there from trying to cross over to look at the “remains” of the town. The bridge was in rough shape, it looked like a strong wind would destroy it forever, and then Paul would really be in deep shit. But how was PEIP getting back and forth between the island and Clivesdale to continue their cover up job? Then, out of the corner of his eye, Paul spotted it. A small fleet of  tiny rowboats, each just big enough for two people had been hidden in some bushes near the edge of the river. He checked his surroundings, then double and triple checked. Nobody was in sight, the Hive was back at the crater and all of the PEIP personnel must have been in a different area of town. This was his chance! He pushed one of the boats towards the water, trying desperately to remember anything he knew about boats. He had been in Scouts when he was younger, did they learn anything about how to row a boat across a river without getting tired or drawing any attention to yourself? Probably not, he thought, and climbed into the boat, making sure to keep the duffel bag with his things in it dry. His balance had been a little off ever since the explosion, and he wobbled slightly when he tried to adjust his position in the boat, which made him worry that he might fall into the river, but he regained his balance and started pushing the boat farther into the water with the paddles. Once he was fully in the river and floating, he took a deep breath, and began to paddle. Push, glide, push, glide. This was a lot more tiring than he had expected. Push, glide, push, glide, push, glide. Looking back over his shoulder every now and then to make sure he wasn’t being followed, Paul began to feel the slightest glimmer of hope. He had made it this far, surely he would be able to find a way to get himself and Emma out of there and somewhere safe. Thud! The boat slammed into the opposite bank of the river, and Paul was thrown forward, barely managing to keep himself upright. He climbed shakily out of the boat, rescued his bag, and began to make his way away from the river bank, and towards a better place to hide while he figured out his next move. If he could find a way to speak to somebody at PEIP, he might be able to find out some news about Emma. There was a small grove of trees near the edge of town, just thick enough to hidden from view if anyone happened to be passing by, so Paul decided to change into his clean clothes, stashed his duffel bag in the trees, and made his way back into civilization. Well, as much as he could call Clivesdale civilization.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading the first chapter of my story, I hope you liked it! I'm not entirely sure how long it will take between chapters, I've got a lot going on right now so it might take a while before I'm done with the next chapter.  
> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated and feed my soul!


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